Remembering September 2007

With the scare of yesterday’s flash flood receding and no more to lament in Almuñécar than raging rivers passing by, but within their banks, and knee-deep flooded streets, let’s look back six years…

In September 2007 the rivers broke their banks and swept through Almuñécar, missing school children coming out of classes by half an hour.

In La Herradura, Río Jate burst its banks too, and like Almuñécar, lost a road bridge to the surge of water and debris. La Herradura’s beach at the west end of the bay took the brunt, losing great swathes of beach area

Sadly, and yet fortunately, considering the dimension of the flash flood, only one person lost his life – there could have been many, many, more had the flood waters hit Almuñécar half an hour before, for example.

Another factor was that the Roman Aqueduct pit absorbed tens of thousands of litres of water and thus spared the town their added weight.

Here are some photos that Martin took at the time, which owing to our not having our own website back then, and the hard copy being only black and white, readers didn’t have the opportunity to see them.

We’re far from out of the flash-flood season (late summer), so let these photos serve as a reminder of the destruction that they can cause.